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Louis's Photos from 5-17-99

WAKE UP, FROSH! IT'S SENIOR DITCH DAY!

Michelle and I went to visit Caltech for Senior Ditch Day. We figured that this would be one of the last good times to see all our friends at Caltech who were now seniors. Plus, it's an important play day at Caltech and the seniors always need assistance from alums.

Two Days Before Ditch Day

Devi has Zero's head in her lap as she works on the recorded message the broken robot's head will deliver on Ditch Day.
Devi works on a to-do list while t-shirt iron-ons print out in the background.
Daisy helps by thinking of things to put on the list.
Here is one of the puzzles that is under construction. Arrange the colored blocks so that all the LEDs around the edges light up.
More work on the to-do list and review-timeline by Devi, Daisy, and Rachel, while Michelle looks on.

One Day Before Ditch Day

Louis helps make T-shirts. Thank goodness for iron-on transfer paper!
Michelle helps make T-shirts. This is hot work!
Rachel puts the colored blocks into plaster casts, turning them into 'motion sensors' which the people on the stack will have to disarm and collect.

Early Ditch Day Morning

Michelle letters a last minute sign for the "X-Men: Technovirus" stack that Devi, Daisy, and Rachel are building.
The Conspiracy Theory stack puts the finishing touches on the facade for their stack.
The Studio 54 stack is ready to go. (I could not get a very good picture since it was in an alcove in the hallway.)
The Rent-A-Cop stack is ready to go.
The Lord Of The Rings stack is ready to go.
The X-Men Technovirus stack is ready to go. Whew!

WAKE UP FROSH! IT'S DITCH DAY

The underclassmen have until 8:15 to look at all the stacks in the house and decide which one they want to sign up for. Each stack can hold between eight and fifteen people. Here are underclassmen reading the description for the Mission: Impossible stack.
People investigating the Rent-A-Cop stack.
People investigating the Destroy Everything stack. Notice the brown boxes containing the extremely important strabery donuts that the stacks participants will get to eat for breakfast.
People investigating the Booty Priates stack.
People investigating the Conspiracy Theory stack.
The seniors are out on the loading zone, making their escape from campus. Any senior caught on campus after 8am will be duct taped to a tree.
Once people have looked at all the stacks and decided which one they want to participate in that day, they hang out near the sign-up shet so they will be ready to sign up at 8:15. The halls are packed with people waiting to sign up for stacks. Here we see the Lord Of The Rings stack (door with foliage) and the Booty Pirates stack in the background.
The Eschaton stack has a comppletely different sort of facade. It looks like a large bomb waiting to go off. This stack is unusual because it has no description or sign-up sheet. Sign-up will clearly be done on the computer, which is counting down the time until 8:15 (18 minutes left in this picture). However, the nature of the stack, whether it involves brute force, finesse, or honor, is a mystery.
Here is the rest of the Eschaton stack. Agin, the all important strawberry donuts are there, and there seems to be packet of keys (the first clue?) taped to the wall, but no description at all!
People investigating the Studio 54 stack.
People waiting by the Destroy Everything stack, In the background are even more people -- see next picture.
People waiting for the Mission: Impossible and Rent-A-Cop stacks. It's so exciting! We're about to find out what the seniors have been working on night and day for the last few weeks hidden behind black plasic, wallboard, and sheets taped over doorways.
People waiting for the X-Men Technovirus stack.
8:15 finally arrives. When the first person logs on to the Eschaton stack using their mailbox number, the computer immediately translates this to their name. The crowd is impressed!
Everyone has signed up for a stack. Time for breakfast!
People eating breakfast in front of the Mission: Impossible stack.
The Rent-A-Cop stack opens the envelope and reads their first clue.
The X-Men Technovirus stack eats their strawberry donuts and gets their t-shirts.
The Destroy Everything stack is also eating breakfast. What did Ryan put in those donuts!? That's the wierded face I've ever seen,
The X-Men Technovirus stack enters the PGR and people choose their identities from the ones layed out on the floor.
Now everyone has run off on their various tasks and I wandered around the campus to see what interesting things had happened last night. I found two very creatively parked cars. How'd they do that?
I don't know how they did this one either. This car was running and the front wheels were spinning! Not only that, this car was later seen being driven around campus! One of the challenges of somebody's stack must have been to get the car down.
Here is a huge concrete block in the shape of Lloyd house, for the Destroy Everything stack.